To Charles James Fox Bunbury [20 March 1855]
Summary
CD hopes to have an hour’s talk with CJFB before CD leaves London.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th baronet |
Date: | [20 Mar 1855] |
Classmark: | John Hay Library, Brown University |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13784 |
From Arthur Edward Knox [c. March 1855–7?]
Summary
CD has suggested an explanation of how pike were introduced to a remote lake in Ireland by cormorants [carrying pike spawn on their feet or in their gullets].
Author: | Arthur Edward Knox |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | Mar 1855-7 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 243 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1624 |
From G. R. Waterhouse [after 2 March 1855]
Summary
Gives instances of sexual differences in the number of tarsi within species of Coleoptera and also variation in the number of tarsi between related species.
Author: | George Robert Waterhouse |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [after 2 Mar 1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 47: 133–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1625 |
From J. D. Hooker [before 7 March 1855]
Summary
CD’s tabulation of colonists curious but explicable.
Working on Tasmanian flora; contemplating general essay on Australian distribution: Tasmania and Australia same alpine species; Swan River flora very peculiar and quite distinct from New South Wales.
Trying to establish new journal at Linnean.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [before 7 Mar 1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 104: 216–17 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1638 |
From Thomas Vernon Wollaston 2 March [1855]
Summary
Hybrid insects.
Description of the Salvages.
Variability of "transition groups" of insects; relation of variability to ranges of insects. The variability of wings, even within species. Reduction of flying ability on isolated islands.
Forbes’s "Atlantis" theory and insect fauna of the Atlantic islands, considered with regard to insect migrations.
Author: | Thomas Vernon Wollaston |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 2 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 181: 136 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1640 |
To G. R. Waterhouse 4 March [1855]
Summary
A page of [unspecified] text is missing from a parcel of material received from GRW.
CD "hopes and expects to live to see Carboniferous, & perhaps even Silurian, mammifers!"
Has several questions to ask whenever they meet.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | George Robert Waterhouse |
Date: | 4 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (Archives DF PAL/100/7/29) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1641 |
From G. R. Waterhouse [7 March 1855]
Summary
Comparison of skulls of Ichthyosaurus and Cetacea.
Author: | George Robert Waterhouse |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [7 Mar 1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 181: 20 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1642 |
To J. D. Hooker 7 March [1855]
Summary
Latitude overrules everything in distribution. Alpine distributions are like insular. Tabulating proportions.
T. V. Wollaston’s Madeira insects: many flightless, thus not blown to sea. TVW’s insects do not confirm Forbes’s Atlantis.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 7 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 126 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1643 |
From J. D. Hooker [before 17 March 1855]
Summary
JDH criticises C. J. F. Bunbury’s paper on Madeira [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 1 (1857): 1–35].
Absence of Ophrys on Madeira suggests to JDH a sequence in creation of groups.
Why are flightless insects common in desert?
Australian endemism.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [before 17 Mar 1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 104: 210–13 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1644 |
To T. H. Huxley 8 March [1855]
Summary
Thanks THH for corroborating his observations. Discusses metamorphosis of ovaria to cement organs. Ovaries, germinal vesicles, and anatomy of cirripedes. Difficulties of classification, and observation.
THH’s article on Mollusca [Charles Knight, ed., English cyclopædia: a new dictionary of universal knowledge (1854–70) 3: 855–74].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 8 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 25) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1645 |
To J. S. Henslow 13 March 1855
Summary
Acknowledges a list [of plants?].
Looks forward to new edition [of British plants growing wild in the parish of Hitcham, Suffolk, 2d ed. (1855)].
JSH should not trouble about Anacharis until he is less busy. Will send cirripedes.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Stevens Henslow |
Date: | 13 Mar 1855 |
Classmark: | DAR 93: A25 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1647 |
To Arthur Henfrey 17 March [1855]
Summary
Can AH give information about D. A. Godron, "De l’espèce et des races" [Mem. Soc. Sci. Lett. & Arts Nancy (1847): 182, 239–88]? CD unable to locate reference.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Arthur Henfrey |
Date: | 17 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1648 |
To Leonard Horner 18 [March 1855]
Summary
CD has been a referee for LH’s Nile geology paper [Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 145 (1855): 105–38]. Praises the work but offers criticism not in his report: Joseph Russegger’s statement about the baked Upper Sandstone deposit cannot be believed; LH’s paper is too long.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Leonard Horner |
Date: | 18 [Mar 1855] |
Classmark: | Kinnordy MS (private collection) (Sold at Sotheby’s (dealers), 9 July 2018, lot 373) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1649 |
To W. D. Fox 19 March [1855]
Summary
Asks WDF to observe at what age pigeons have tail-feathers sufficiently developed to be counted.
CD is hard at work on his notes for a book with all the facts "for & versus" the immutability of species.
Asks for a young chicken and a nestling common pigeon.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 19 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 87) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1651 |
From John Davy 21 March 1855
Summary
On the ova of the salmon in relation to the distribution of species.
Author: | John Davy |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Mar 1855 |
Classmark: | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 146 (1856): 21–9 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1651A |
To John Davy 25 March [1855]
Summary
Will forward JD’s paper to the Royal Society ["On the ova of salmon", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 146 (1856): 21–9].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Davy |
Date: | 25 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | Royal Institution of Great Britain (Box XVII, 210) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1653 |
To John Davy 26 March [1855]
Summary
Discusses JD’s paper ["On ova of salmon"]. His experiments are of particular value regarding power of dispersal and geographical distribution and would make of them a very different subject. Hopes JD can test again the tenacity of life of non-developed ova being less than that of those fully developed – a result which surprised CD.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Davy |
Date: | 26 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | Royal Institution of Great Britain (Box XVII, 210) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1654 |
To J. S. Henslow 26 March [1855]
Summary
Thanks JSH for Anacharis which is flourishing.
P. H. Gosse told him he had several sea animals and algae living in artificial sea-water for over 13 months.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Stevens Henslow |
Date: | 26 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 93: A26–A27 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1655 |
To W. D. Fox 27 March [1855]
Summary
Thanks WDF for his offer of assistance in collecting varieties of poultry. Describes his needs. He will raise his own pigeons.
Often doubts whether, despite all help, the problem of species will not overpower him.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 27 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 88) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1656 |
To Hugh Miller 29 March [1855]
Summary
Requests HM’s article in the Witness [24 Feb 1855; see HM, "On the late severe frost", Proc. R. Phys. Soc. Edinburgh 1 (1854–8): 10–14], on the effects of frost on shells. CD expresses admiration for the two works by HM he has read.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Hugh Miller |
Date: | 29 Mar [1855] |
Classmark: | National Trust for Scotland (Hugh Miller’s Cottage, Cromarty) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1657 |
letter | (23) |
Darwin, C. R. | (16) |
Hooker, J. D. | (2) |
Waterhouse, G. R. | (2) |
Davy, John | (1) |
Knox, A. E. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (7) |
Davy, John | (2) |
Fox, W. D. | (2) |
Henfrey, Arthur | (2) |
Henslow, J. S. | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | |
Davy, John | (3) |
Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
Waterhouse, G. R. | (3) |
Fox, W. D. | (2) |
Henfrey, Arthur | (2) |
Henslow, J. S. | (2) |
Huxley, T. H. | (2) |
Bunbury, C. J. F. | (1) |
Horner, Leonard | (1) |
Knox, A. E. | (1) |
Miller, Hugh | (1) |
Royal Society of London | (1) |
Sharpey, William | (1) |
Wollaston, T. V. | (1) |